The day an Avenger became a monk

Press, 14 November 1977, Page 17

The day an Avenger became a monk

By

RUPERT BUTLER

He was expelled from Eton for gambling, his girlfriend was killed by the Nazis, he entered a monastery, but was later abducted by a secret agent posing as e nun.

Who is the victim of these unlikely misfortunes? John Steed, debonair star of the TV series. “The New Avengers.”

These never-before-re-vealed details of Steed’s private life are in the latest creation of the S36M industry surrounding the series: Steed’s “authorised biography,” written for him bv a Fleet Street journalist, Tim Heald. The revelations have, of course, no bearing on the life of the man who actually plays Steed, the actor, Pat’

rick McNee, but by now Steed has a complete character of his own. According to Tim Heald, Steed started on his mission to combat evil after his 16-year-old girl-friend was murdered by the Gestapo in World War 11.

Heald said: “In despair, Steed entered a monastery in Yorkshire, but he really wasn’t the type for the religious life. He was abducted by a secret agent named Cathy Gale, who was posing as a nun.”

John Steed's “authorised biography” is the latest development in the flourishing Avengers cult, which is rapidly becoming a highly profitable industry for firms making just about everything from cufflinks to jigsaws.

There is an Avengers Annual on the market, and scores of novelised versions of the scripts. Keith Shackleton, in charge of marketing all products connected with the New Avengers, asked: “Have you got your Gambit doll yet? Or your Purdey doll? Everyone seems to be asking for them.”

There is also, of course, a Steed doll. Or maybe you prefer an Avengers jigsaw — there’s a particularly popular one just now of a suave-looking Steed peering round a doorway. The latest thing in cufflinks — a big seller in Britain — sports the aggressively rampant lion, insignia of the New Avengers.

Since the series made its bow in 1960, it has netted some S36M and has been shown in 120 countries. A spokesman for Avengers Enterprises, Ltd, said: “The ‘New Avengers’ has shot to the top of the ratings in West Germany, where Steed’s bowler-hatted suavity is much admired. “A lot of Germans, happily, believe that most Englishmen live and behave like Steed, or like Gareth Hunt

his male co-star in the series.

"Occasionally, the reception for the show is puzzh ing. The Dutch love it, probably because they find the whole gentle satire quite incomprehensible.” What the Dutch have also liked are Joanna Lumley’s clothes, and Purdey fashions are undergoing a quiet boom in Amsterdam department stores.

Although a good many of Steed’s enemies come from behind the Iron Curtain, that has not stopped Communist countries from buying the series, which has recently popped up in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Rumania.

The series running on European screens was partly financed by a French advertising film-maker, Rudolph Roffi, who put up SBM, at least half of which is being rapidly recouped in overseas sales. Shooting is planned for yet another series in a variety of Canadian and American locations — a bid for still wider markets. Not that “The New Avengers” has always had things strictly its own way. Some rather sharp criticism of the first series with Joanna Lumley caused Rudolph Roffi to make the devastating comment: "Purdey isn’t nearly sexy enough. Joanna Lumley’s dresses are rather drab. We

need more of St Laurent and less of the British suburban high street.” The result has been fewer old-fashioned frillies, more slit-skirt gowns and minidresses — all of which are enchanting the Dutch and generally refuelling the Avengers cult in Europe. But the transformation of the Avengers really goes back to the senational introduction of Honor Black* man as Cathy Gale, an aggressively emancipated sidekick in black leather.

Sydney Newman, who was directing “The Avengers” at the time, recalls: “Mrs Gale was a senation because TV heroines up till then had been either wives or secretaries or sex objects. “For the first time, here was a woman who used her mind, made decisions, and generally took part in the action.”

Those who have stayed with the Avengers cult since it began will remember that Mrs Gale was an anthropologist, an expert photographer, mechanic, driver, judo expert, and shot Purdey, on the other hand, is a trained ballerina, bom in India, and with an international education which has included studying Chinese martial arts in Peking. Everything, in fact, has remained much the same? Well, not quite, I am assured: "You see stocking tops now. You see a lot more stocking tops with Purdey.”